


Dead Man Walking

by killonpaper



Category: Outlast (Video Games)
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, Minor Character Death, Two Teens Explore a spooky place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-30
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 08:26:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,608
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6697333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/killonpaper/pseuds/killonpaper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been a month since the riot at Mount Massive, and Halloween is just around the corner. Two teenagers decide to explore the abandoned asylum after hearing rumors that it is haunted. Little do they know, something really is lurking in the halls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The foul scent of decaying bodies permeated the air of the asylum. Miles walked confidently through the halls, used to the scent that filled his nostrils. He used to have to stop everyone once in awhile to collect himself, prevent himself from retching up the contents of his stomach. After becoming the host, he no longer had that problem. He breathed more out of habit than necessity. After a lifetime of breathing, it was hard to quit. The nanobots that swarmed around and inside him kept him alive. He wasn't entirely sure how, given how many times he had been shot. Miles was a dead man walking. 

The nanites hadn't completely halted the decomposition of his body. His skin was a sicky green, sloughing off in some areas. The skin around his nails had retracted, making them seem like claws, jagged and beaten from his many escapes from the inmates and employees alike. His eyes and nose bled continuously, the blood turning black after the first week of his death. He had tried to leave the asylum’s grounds before, to no avail. The further he got from Mount Massive, the weaker he became. He suspected his strength was based on the proximity to the hellish place. At one point, the loneliness he faced became so unbearable he attempted to leave, to let himself die. The nanites would not let him. The locked his putrefying muscles into place, freezing him where he stood. He had no choice but to remain there until he was nothing but bone, and the building collapsed around him. 

Days passed, and slowly but surely Upshur’s flesh sloughed away. When the skin on his hands began to deglove, he picked away at it until it slid off, revealing the darkened red muscle underneath. Soon, the rest of the skin on his body decayed, and his muscles followed suit. He didn't feel any of it, and that he was thankful for. His nerves had died after his heart had stopped, punctured by one of the bullets. The more his flesh decayed, the stronger the nanites seemed to become, replicating themselves and replacing the flesh keeping his bones together. Miles was stronger than he had been when he was alive, inhumanly so. And yet he still could not leave the place where so many had met their end. 

He was amazed that no one had come to clean up, or in the very least demolish the place. It was in such a remote location he assumed the government was just going to let it rot. He didn't blame them. The place would be a nightmare to clean up. Of course, this was assuming the whistleblower had made it out alive. He had never discovered the person’s name, if they had a family or not. He preferred it that way. He tried not to think about the fact that he had likely ruined someone’s life, but the thought haunted him, much like he haunted the asylum. 

Roughly a month had passed (he had no way of keeping time, nor did he care to) when he heard someone else walk the halls of the asylum. Despite his strength, an instinctive panic possessed him, causing him to hide in a vent. Just like the old days. He peered through the grate, watching as two figures slowly made their way down the hall. One of them, the taller of the two, carried a flashlight, leading the smaller one by the hand. By their height and build, Miles guessed they were two teenagers that had broken into the asylum for a thrill. The shorter one seemed hesitant, the taller one practically dragging them along. They spoke to each other in hushed whispers, the sound of a human voice foreign to Miles after such a long time of silence. He cared less for what they were talking about, and more for where they were headed. They were young, and did not deserve to see the horrors that were the aftermath of the riot. The blood may of dried, but the bodies were still in the process of decomposition, mostly fluids and bone remaining. Miles himself now only consisted of bone and nanites, flesh clinging to his ribs and skull. 

He let the grate to the vent he was hiding in swing open, moving himself backwards around the corner of the vent to avoid being spotted by the flashlight-wielding teen. As he expected, the teens turned quickly in the direction of the noise, shining their flashlight into the vent. Brushing it off as a rusty screw finally breaking loose, they proceeded further. He exited the vent, the nanites allowing him to slowly drift to the floor. He watched them proceed through the administration block into the prison block, tailing them from a distance. He hovered a short distance above the ground to avoid making sound. The teens’ progress was halted by one of the airlocks. The smaller of the two was handed the flashlight, holding it steady to illuminate the control panel to the airlock. The taller one pressed the button, waiting for a moment. After nothing happened, they pressed it again, more aggressively. Irritated and frightened, the one with the flashlight suggested they just leave. The other refused, saying they would just find a way around the airlock. 

Miles knew this would be a perfect opportunity to scare them into leaving. He stopped hovering, his gore-soaked boots hitting the wooden floor with a loud clunk. A fallen piece of drywall crunched under his soles. The teens froze in place, both of them slowly turning to face in his direction. The taller one let out a yell, the other grabbing them roughly by the arm as they darted into the nearest open room. Another scream followed shortly after. They had found one of the victims, or what remained of him. Miles followed the couple into the room, not bothering to hide his presence any longer. They turned to him, slowly backing away, up against the wall. One covered their mouth, attempting not to wretch in a mixture of fear and disgust. For the first time in weeks, Miles attempted to speak. His voice was multi-layered, his normal voice deepened and raspy, and he could hear the walrider itself speak alongside him, its voice like a loud whisper, loud enough to be heard on top of his own. Underneath both of these was the voice of Billy Hope, young and weak, audible only to Miles. 

“Leave this place and do not return. You do not deserve to lose what is left of your innocence in this way. All that you will find here is death and decay, the aftermath of humanity at its worst.”

The two were stunned, glancing at each other before darting out of the door past Miles. They dropped their flashlight in their rush, heading out of the main doors and nearly tripping as they ran down the steps. He had no doubt they would not return. Miles clicked off the flashlight, setting it outside as he watched the teens run off, down the hill and into their car. Once they had driven off, he shut the heavy double doors that guarded the entrance to Mount Massive, bathing the area in familiar darkness.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things continue as normal as they can be for Miles, until he realizes he is beginning to lose control of himself, the walrider slowly and completely consuming him. Should he give in, or should he keep fighting?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you guys so much for the kudos and the reviews on the first chapter! Originally, I wasn't going to continue this beyond a oneshot, but thanks to you awesome people I've decided to write another chapter. The adventures of Walrider!Miles aren't done yet. :)

More curious teenagers looking for a thrill came after the first pair. Each time, they wouldn’t make it past the airlock until Miles -or what remained of him- scared them off. He found it funny, in a way. Miles had spent his teenage years watching campy 80’s horror movies, and now it was like he was inside of one. At first he had been the unwitting victim, and now he was playing the role of the monster. If it would keep anyone else from being harmed by this forsaken place, be it physically or psychologically, he was glad to assume the role. 

 

Days past, and Halloween came and went. By this point Miles truly was nothing but bone, the nanites supporting and reanimating him. At some point, though he didn’t notice when, his awareness began to fade. He would experience memory gaps spanning anywhere between a few seconds to a few days. He felt like he was fading. Not just felt, he knew he was. What he didn’t know was how long he’d have until he faded and didn’t come back. The walrider was becoming stronger. He had expected something like this, but he didn’t think it would’ve been so soon. 

 

At first, he had no intentions of fighting it. After what he had been through, Miles felt that to simply fade into nothing would be a perfectly acceptable ending to his life. That was until he regained awareness crouched above a corpse, blood covering the yellowed bone up to his elbow and nanites whirring in his head. The body he was staring down at was not one of the ones from the riot. It was fresh, still warm to the touch. He would of felt sick if he still had a stomach. Trying to remain calm, as anxiety lead to blackouts, he examined the body closer. It was as he had feared. A boy, aged in his later teens, lay dead on the broken tiled floor. A hole gaped through his torso, the boy’s intestines spilling out onto the floor. The feeling of extreme drowsiness that usually preceded a blackout grew by the second. He couldn’t help but look at the boy’s face. He felt he owed him at least that, to look upon his face even if he did not know the identity of the one he had just killed. His face was not peaceful or solemn like those of the people whose funerals he had visited in the past. His eyes were open, and in them Miles could see fear. His mouth hung agape, blood trickling from one corner. The kid had died afraid and in pain, and there was no denying that fact. 

 

Miles started to rise to his feet when a noise caused him to halt. He heard sniffling slowly giving way to muffled sobs coming from further down the hall. Underneath an overturned table sat a girl about the same age as the dead boy, if not slightly younger. She sat huddled, facing Miles, her legs pulled up to her chest. She was shaking violently, and as Miles turned to look at her her eyes widened in terror, tears streaming down her face.  He noticed a resemblance between the two of them, and from this he inferred that they could of been related. He opened his jaw to warn the girl as he had warned others before her, but as he willed himself to speak the walrider screamed in protest, lethargy building even further. Miles resisted it with every bit of agency he had left, fighting to keep control of the body that was once his. Losing control had caused this, had caused more bloodshed, and he would not let it happen again. He would have to protect the world from himself. In this he found purpose, and the ability to overcome the walrider’s influence. In his voice, weak and dry but undeniably  _ his _ , he said one word to the girl: 

  
“Run.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Miles recalls the whistleblower.

Miles found his likeness to a horror movie monster less funny after the incident. He didn’t understand why the walrider had killed. Was that its purpose? Was it created to be used as a weapon? If that were the case, it was effectively a beast without a master, unless Miles could tame it… But how? His consciousness was fading more and more, the walrider’s power growing as he waned. At any moment he could simply blink out of existence. Before the incident, Miles had found the fact comforting. After the incident, he found it terrifying. If he allowed it to take over, allowed it to grow more powerful to the point that it could escape its confines in the asylum’s walls, disaster could result. It’s what he had wanted to prevent, what the whistleblower risked his life for. Letting go would throw away all they had worked for.

 

_ The whistleblower _ . He hadn’t thought of them in a while. He didn’t know who he was endangering back then, didn’t know anything about them. He still didn’t. A sequence of sensations flashed through his mind. Pure rage coursing through him, fingers turned claws seizing flesh and tearing, eviscerating until chunks of flesh were all that was left. Blood caked under his nails, the blood of a certain corrupt Murkoff executive. Two eyes full of fear staring up at him through strands of hair matted in sweat and blood.  _ The whistleblower.  _ He had fought to remain in control, to ensure the whistleblower could escape even though he could not. He had watched him walk out the front door, past the tactical vehicles and towards the little red jeep that used to be his in another life. He stumbled towards him involuntarily, the walrider beginning to overrun his mind. Just as he started the jeep, Miles had blacked out. He remembered coming to slumped against the asylum’s outermost wall. He gathered the walrider had tried to pursue the whistleblower, to finish its task of taking every last life in the asylum. His jeep was nowhere in sight, and with that he knew it had failed. 

 

He would’ve given anything for that to be him. To be able to leave the hell that was Mount Massive alive and in mostly one piece, but the asylum was now a part of him, just as he was a part of the asylum. Part of him hated himself for continuing to whine about the unchangeable, but his more reasonable self told him he had every right to feel jealous of the living. Why had he been chosen as the host? Going by the notes he had read, there were plenty of other candidates. All it took to be in the running was mental trauma. No wonder the experiment took place in an asylum. He found it ironic that despite all of the patients there, an outsider had been chosen as the walrider’s final host. Miles thought it might’ve been the fault of Father Martin, one of the many variants he had met. He had never been a religious man himself, but despite his skepticism here he was; The host of the walrider, an entity Martin’s cult had worshipped as a god. Another bit of irony in that, he supposed. 

 

Deciding to proceed with his typical patrol of the asylum grounds, Miles stood from his crouched position besides a makeshift grave. He had buried the body of the boy the walrider had killed previously, something he hadn’t bothered doing to the many other bodies littering the asylum. This was different, personal. Police hadn’t come to investigate, and he had a couple of theories as to why. Either one, the girl never made it back to the nearby town to report the murder, or two, the police had been paid by Murkoff in exchange for their silence. He hoped for the latter of the two outcomes, because at least in this instance he wouldn’t have two deaths to feel responsible for. He made his way out of the courtyard, levitating above the ground into the nearby second-story window. He had barred most of the main entrances to the building to prevent anyone from coming in. Since no one had been sent to deal with the place, he would fill the role of guardian as well.  _ Reporter, monster, guardian.  _ He wondered what other titles he would give himself as time wore on, what other roles would present themselves for him to fill. 


End file.
